


find the sky

by kyrilu



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Community: eleventy_kink, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 10:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A picnic, with a side of fish fingers and colours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	find the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SnowyAshes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowyAshes/gifts).



> Finally got this up on AO3, Snowy. :) Here it is!

_Your silky smooth palm slides heat up my cheek,  
pulling me into you, and we meet, and  
the dark and the colors swirl together,  
melt, and drip down the sides of my eyes..._

"This looks like a nice spot, River," the Doctor says, pointing at a little patch of grass at his feet. "Looks...soft. And cosy."

"Last time you said that, a Venus Flytrap creature snapped at my heels, love," River says. She shakes her head at him in fond amusement. The picnic basket dangles from her hands, slightly heavy, but she glances down at it in hopeful anticipation.

The Doctor pouts. "Oh, come now, River, don't be absurd, it happened only once. Anyways, it's technically called a Jawed Rootweed, and it is _definitely_ not from Venus--"

"It's from Miranda; I was there, too," River interupts, tossing back her hair with a dismissive flounce. "Look over there, there's some shade under that treeish-looking thing. The grass looks safe, too," she adds.

The Doctor opens his mouth to protest, but she grabs his hand, curling her fingers around his wrist (two pulses: one two three four) and they both run across the meadow, stepping through green.

"You can set up the blanket and food," she instructs the Doctor as they both lie, laughing and panting, against the tree-thing (it's a crimson colour, flanked in snowflake-esque leaves and a fuzzy trunk).

The Doctor accepts the basket she thrusts into his arms, and he's rifling through things and making delighted noises at his every find. River tries not to laugh.

Instead, she collects herself and sets up the equipment, unfolding a telescope and keying through the lense settings, mentally debating whether she should push the record button. "Doctor," she says, after she finishes turning the last knob, "did you find the fish fingers?"

"Oh, yes," he says smilingly, and when she kisses him, she tastes lemon custard on his lips.

"Silly boy," she murmurs. He pats at the ground beside him, motioning for her to take a seat, and she does. There's some fishfingers in front of her, but she doesn't deign to take a bite -- she reaches for some crisps instead.

For a moment, they are silent, munching on their respective treats; River enjoys the way the crisps crunch under her teeth, salty like brine.

"Time yet?" she asks.

"A minute more," the Doctor replies, his sonic screwdriver beaming green at the sky. "Look, see, the sun's starting to wink out."

And it is: yellow flickering into uncertainty and the colours all around are almost white-washed. It's as if someone threw a bone-tinted filter across the meadow -- _fading_ , that's the proper word for all of it.

River starts counting down in her head, taking a last swig of apple juice to wash the saltiness away. She edges closer to the telescope, extends the optics, and squints through one of the lense pairs. The Doctor peers through the other intently, leaning at it in a way that has his arse sticking out, and River suppresses a giggle.

"Five...four...three...two... _one_."

The lights start to play across the heavens, all colour returned, but it's more vivid than ever. River thinks of a book she'd read before, about an orchestra causing the colours to manifest through symphony, and she thinks, not for the first time, that there's always something real and true and wonderful to bring to life the beauty of all things fictional.

Red, green, blue, purple, orange, yellow, everything. There's a hue like the TARDIS and like the Doctor's fez and the green light of the sonic screwdriver. There's a shade like a copper penny and the Doctor's bowtie, and mud-streaked petrichor scented rain on a window.

There are the colours of _them_ , River Song and the Doctor, blurred hues of skin and eyes and clothes, and it's all one colour now since she's pulled away from the telescope and presses close to him.

"Look at the sky, sweetie," she nudges at him (this is a once in a lifetime event, after all)-- he's been looking at her for a long while now, uncharacteristically silent. 

"I am," he says, and he touches her cheek, and although the colours start to go away, River can still see them reflected in his eyes.


End file.
